


Choices You Hate to Make

by writerdragonfly



Series: realignment verse [2]
Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Father-Daughter Relationship, Gen, Lifetime Perspective, Original Character Death(s), POV Outsider
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-23
Updated: 2016-02-23
Packaged: 2018-05-22 18:33:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,529
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6090211
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/writerdragonfly/pseuds/writerdragonfly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Leonard Russell, through the years.<br/>Realignment verse.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Choices You Hate to Make

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MissSugarPlum](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MissSugarPlum/gifts).



> Contains spoilers for [Realignment (time & company),](http://archiveofourown.org/works/5868238/chapters/13525813) especially chapters 4 & 7.
> 
> Also contains a major spoiler for Realignment that has been alluded to but not outright spoken. Please be aware of this before reading.
> 
> Not beta-read.

Lenny Russell loved all three of his girls.

 

He met Florence when he was just shy of nineteen and married her a few months later. Her family was a bit more well off than most, but her daddy didn’t deny her his blessings even though Lenny didn’t have much. He worked hard, and her daddy knew that, he thinks.

 

They had Felicia when he was twenty-one, and his little girl was just the love of his life from the start. She was his bright and happy child, and she loved joining her daddy in the kitchen.

 

Florence wasn’t much of a housewife. Oh, she knew how to clean and take care of things, but she’d always had a bit too much spirit to stay home and raise Felicia, make him supper every night.

 

Lenny was okay with that. He liked how brave and wild she was, most of the time.

 

So Lenny did what he could to take care of his little girl, taught her to cook when he got home after long shifts, taught her letters late at night. When she got old enough, he took her to school in the mornings and she walked herself to the factory in the late afternoon. Sometimes Florence would pick her up then, but sometimes she’d sit quietly with the secretary in the foreman’s office and wait for him to be done.

 

It wasn’t perfect, but Felicia knew her daddy loved her.

 

Francine was an accident. Lenny and Florence had decided when Felicia was a little girl that she would be the only one. Lenny just didn’t have the time to devote to caring for another little one and Florence didn’t want any more children.

 

But when Felicia was eight, just after they finally bought a house, Florence found out she was pregnant again and they had to prepare for a new baby all over again.

 

Florence seemed to flourish with her second pregnancy and when Francine was born, she seemed content with motherhood in a way she’d never been with Felicia. Lenny did his best to hide it from Felicia, but his brave little girl was too smart not to know it.

 

But Felicia didn’t get mad with her ma, no. She just got quiet, offered to help around the house more.

 

By the time Felicia was sixteen, she was a beautiful young girl, a wonderful big sister, and a hard worker. Lenny was proud of her.

 

And then one day, Lenny came home from work and Francine was sitting in their little kitchen by herself eating toast instead of dinner  and he knew something was wrong because Francine was quiet and his youngest little girl had never been quiet before.

 

“Where’s your sister, Franny?” He’d asked and she just started crying instead. And then Florence had whipped into the room in her dressing gown and told him not to bother Francine, that she wouldn’t tolerate questions about the harlot in her house.

 

They’d fought that night, and it was an ugly, terrible fight.

 

He learned his little Felicia had gotten pregnant, and Florence had told her to leave and never come back.

 

He saw Felicia twice after that. Once, he saw her when he was on the bus home, and she was wearing a checker-print waitress dress stretched over the slight swell of her belly and he wish he coulda stopped and spoken to her, but the bus just kept going. (And Lenny was a coward, maybe.)

 

The second time was two weeks later, and he’d hardly gotten to speak with her before a white cop put his hands on her, before he ended up with his nose broken and a threat down his shirt in red blood.

 

The cop’s nameplate read _Snart_ and Lenny never did see her again.

 

He tried to find her, but it was hard. It was hard and Florence was talking about divorce and Francine was just a little girl. He had to make a choice and he hated himself afore he was even done making it.

 

He stopped spending as much time looking for Felicia, instead making sure Francine knew that he loved her just as much as her sister. With time, Florence stopped talking about divorce.

 

Francine got married when she was twenty-five. His son-in-law Joe was a great kid, younger than Francine but hopelessly devoted. Lenny didn’t see them often, but he adored his granddaughter.

 

And then he got a call from Joe, the kid saying he and Iris were coming over for a visit. Lenny took Iris on a walk to the park and they sat on the swings when Florence started yelling at Joe. And when Joe took Iris home that night, Lenny knew he wouldn’t see his granddaughter again unless he went to visit her without Florence.

 

Francine had left her husband, left her daughter. The dark parts in Florence seemed to be flourishing in Francine and Lenny hated that he hadn’t seen it coming.

 

He didn’t see Francine after that except once. Florence had gotten sick, and Franny had heard somehow and Lenny never knew how but Franny sat by her ma’s bedside for the whole night before she died.

 

And then Franny left before the funeral and Lenny had to bury his wife without either of his daughters.

 

Joe showed up and helped with the funeral arrangements and Iris asked if her mom’s funeral was like this too and as much as Lenny hated it, he told her yes. Because he knew why Joe had told her that, he understood.

  
“If you need anything,” Joe promised before he left the night after the funeral, his arms full of sleeping child, “I’ll do what I can.”

 

Lenny knew he would, which is why Lenny never asked.

 

Lenny retired when he was sixty-three, settled into Felicia’s room at the front of the house when the stairs got to be too much. He retired and spent his days watching cable TV and asking around about Felicia even though he knew she woulda come back a long time ago if she was still alive. He wanted to hope but he didn’t have much faith in it.

 

He was sixty-five when someone broke into his house. It was just a white kid in his twenties probably, wearing clothes that almost but didn’t quite fit and no shoes at all.

 

And he didn’t know the kid, but he knew that his house was a dirty, dusty mess and this kid wasn’t wearing any shoes.

 

And then the kid asks if he’s Felicia’s dad and for the first time, Lenny feels _hope_ that his first baby girl is alive. And then the kid says he doesn’t know if she is.

 

But he has a grandson, and Felicia knew that her daddy loved her because she named him Leonard, and he’s alive. He’s alive and he’s twenty-five and...

 

And Lenny knows that he needs to find him. He needs to find him, and make sure that boy knows that he is loved, that Lenny woulda been there in an instant if he coulda.

 

He finds him two weeks later, finds his grandson using the name Leonard Snart, and he remembers that white cop with his hand on his daughter and he thinks maybe he gets it.

 

His grandson tells him how his Felicia died, how good she was, how much she said she loved him.

 

“I never wanted your ma to leave, kid,” Lenny tells him, “and I found her once, but your daddy--”

 

“He doesn’t deserve to be called that,” his grandson hisses, and then his face immediately goes blank.

 

He doesn’t like that look on his grandson’s face.

 

“I’m sorry I didn’t find you,” Lenny says again, “but I’d like ta get ta know you, if that’s all right.”

 

“My... sister. She’s not Felicia’s, but... you don’t treat her any different than me, and we can talk.”

 

And he meets his grandson’s sister and he doesn’t need him to say it for Lenny to know.

 

There’s something about her that just screams _Felicia_ , and Lenny knows. Lenny knows that she’s not _his_ granddaughter, but she _is_ his grandson’s little girl.

 

“Lisa’s beautiful, Leonard,” Lenny tells him, and there’s that soft look in Leonard Snart’s eyes that looks just like Felicia.

 

“Len,” his grandson says, “Call me Len.”

 

Lenny gets a year and a half with them before he gets sick. He gets sick, and he leaves the house to Len, and it’s under Len’s birthname.

 

Leonard Russell, just like it should be.

 

Joe brings Iris over to say goodbye, and he kisses his granddaughter one last time. Francine doesn’t come to visit, but she calls him and says goodbye, and Lenny thinks he hears a little boy in the background and he hopes she’s happy somewhere.

 

Len and Lisa sneak into his hospital room late at night, and Lenny says goodbye to Lisa. And then when Lisa sneaks back out, he grabs his grandson’s hand and tells him the house is his, that he should take his daughter and build a life there.

 

Len nods, and Lenny hopes he will.

 

Lenny falls asleep happy that night and never does wake up again.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Leonard "Lenny" Russell is born in 1933. Felicia Russell is born in 1955, and her sister Francine is born in 1963.


End file.
